


That Particular Ensemble

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [234]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Academy Awards, Established Relationship, In Which Tony is Wrong, M/M, Sartorial Arguments Between Boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 23:56:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17928800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: Steve make a fashion choice. Tony does not agree.





	That Particular Ensemble

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Chris Evans' look at the 2019 Oscars. I mean, [come _on_](http://weheartchrisevans.tumblr.com/post/183044724342/hasan-minhaj-chris-evans-and-jennifer-lopez).

“That coat is ridiculous.”

“Is it?” Steve turned in front of the mirror, trying hard to hide his smile. They'd been having this argument for days. “I like it.”

Tony snorted and reached for the champagne. “Obviously. Well, don’t blame me if the fashion blogs give you shit about it tomorrow.”

“Since when do you care about fashion bloggers, Tone?” He raised an eyebrow at Tony’s reflection. “Is that why you’re sticking with the standard penguin suit?”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that a tux is never out of style.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, gesturing, “hence my particular ensemble.”

Tony grumbled and slid out of his chair, slipped to the dresser where Steve was parked and stood shoulder-to-shoulder. “You look like you skinned a couch. A nice velvety one somebody’s grandma kept under plastic.”

“You’re just mad I found it first.”

“Nah,” Tony said. He tipped his hip against Steve’s and gave him a half-folded grin. “Blue’s not really my color. Now come on, Cinderella, get a move on. We're gonna be late."  


*****  


Steve wasn’t really one for having his picture taken, even though from day one, it’d been part of the job; what good was having Captain America, America’s superest soldier, if everybody and their brother didn’t know what he looked like? If his job was to intimidate the enemy and all, having his mug plastered everywhere was kind of the name of the game.

Now, though, almost a century later, the lenses snapped in his direction for a very different reason: he was dating Tony Stark. Tony, who never met a camera he didn’t want to make love to. Tony, who was always eager, always ready to give a nosy reporter a soundbite, a riposte, a wink and snappy bon mot. Tony, who was the only person Steve had ever met who looked forward to facing the paparazzi; yeah, Tony had been jazzed about this Oscar thing for _weeks_.

“They’ll yell at us to kiss,” he said matter-of-factly, as the traffic in front of them slowed to a crawl. “They’ll yell a lot of shit, probably, but I guarantee you’ll hear the kiss thing.”

Steve shrugged. “That’s nothing new.”

Tony caught his knee, tugged until he had Steve’s full attention. “Yeah, no, but this is the Oscars. And this will be going out in real time.”

“So what?”

“So, I am totally fine with you laying one on me, Velvet Avenger, in front of god, the internet, and everybody.” He smirked. “I might even be ok with tongue.”

Steve laughed, tried to. The marching band of butterflies in his gut didn’t make it come easy. “I’m not Frenching you on the red carpet, Tony.”

Tony batted his eyes, ridiculous, and bit his lip. Let his hand wander up somewhere more interesting. “Mmmm," he hummed, "you sure? Think how hot we’d look. Your hands around my face, my fingers underneath this goddamn jacket.”

“Stop it,” Steve said. The words didn’t come out real stern. 

“Oh, you like that idea, huh?”

Steve’s hips tipped up, his nice Armani trousers sliding towards tight. “Not in the least.”

Tony leaned over, wrinkles in his coat be damned, and then his mouth--the bane of Steve’s existence, sometimes; an endless source of job--was hovering over Steve’s, a whisper, the smoothest hint of a kiss. “I know tonight isn’t your scene,” he murmured, his damned hand opening, closing, “but once we get through this, I promise, I’ll make sure you know how grateful  I am. Maybe even on the way home, huh, when you’re peopled out and exhausted.” His lips lifted. “You can just lay your head back like this, Cap, and I’ll find a way to make you feel good.”

“Fine,” Steve said, more than halfway to breathless. He stroked Tony’s neck and spread his legs a little wider. “Ok. I can work with that.”

 

*****

Tony was wrong.

Well, Tony was wrong about a lot of things, so the fact alone wasn’t a newsflash. But he was never wrong about the press--what they wanted, what would shut them up, which sentence out of an hour’s long interview they were sure to use.

That night, though, on the long desert of the red carpet, he was.

For once in their public life together, nobody seem to care that about how much Iron Man loved Captain America. All they cared about was Steve Rogers’ damnable jacket.

“Hey, Tony,” the front row of photogs shouted after just a few frames, “step over.”

Tony squinted into the flashing lights, Steve’s arm still strung through his. “What?”

He could see a sea of hands waving, gesturing wild for him to get the fuck out of the frame. “Move!” he heard through the maelstrom. “Cap, can you--?

Which was how Tony landed on the sidelines, beyond the center of the oculus, watching the world’s entertainment press lose their collective shit over his boyfriend’s bizarre sartorial choice.

It wasn’t that he was jealous, exactly; not of the attention, anyway. He’d been on the business end of a telephoto lens for all of his adult life. Nor did he begrudge anyone the opportunity to ogle the frankly criminal beauty that was Steve. God, if the world had any inkling what he got to see every night when he peeled Steve out of his clothes, there’d be an outcry--nay, a fucking _demand_ \--for a sex tape. Or at least some semi-tasteful nudes.

But what confused him was why the assembled were obsessing over Steve--because of that blue velvet coat? Seriously?

When Steve had brought it home, looking semi-triumphant, Tony had rolled his eyes and suggested (politely) that he take it right the fuck back. Steve had heard him out in a very Steve sort of way and then shaken his head.

“No,” he’d said. “I appreciate your opinion, but I like it.”

It wasn’t like it looked bad on Steve per se; the guy could wear Bermuda shorts and Birkenstocks and get Tony half hard with just a smile and a long glance. And it wasn’t that the coat itself was hideous, though its 1970s powder blue-ness reminded Tony of what Carrie’s date had worn to the prom.

No. The jacket itself wasn’t the issue. It was Steve liking the jacket, buying the jacket, feeling so at ease in the thing when they so clearly didn’t go together, didn’t really match. Steve was a straight down the numbers guy, clothing-wise; to him, wearing black jeans instead of blue was a big fashion deal. They’d been to shindigs like this before, big formal gatherings that attracted international press, and Steve had never shown any inclination to stray from the well-cut black and white; until tonight, the craziest he’d ever gotten was tails.

But then they’d been invited to the Oscars and Tony had made the standard assumptions and thus been taken aback when Steve had strolled into the penthouse with that coat on a hanger, face stretched in a big sunny grin.

They didn’t match, Steve and that soft velvet thing. That was what had gotten under Tony’s skin. They were an odd couple and Tony didn’t understand how it could work but apparently, if the photogs’ whoops were any indication, the excited cheers of the crowd, everyone else in the universe was damn sure that it did.


End file.
